When is the best time to buy or sell a home in Massachusetts?

We probably all “know” that the best time to sell a home is the spring or early summer, right? But is there evidence to back up that belief? This article provides the answer to the question: when is the best time to buy or sell a home in Massachusetts?

I looked at the median price of a Single Family Home (SFH) by quarter over the last 16 years. (Note that in all my reports, while sales numbers include all recorded MLS sales, median prices exclude distressed sales – foreclosures and short sales).

The highest price recorded each year is highlighted. This shows that in 14 of the 16 years the highest median price was recorded in Q3 – July to September. In the other two years the highest price was achieved in Q2, but in none of the years did Q1 or Q4 see the highest price.

Source: MLS, Oliver Reports

The next table shows the same data but with the lowest quarterly price highlighted. Here we see that in 12 of the 16 years the lowest median price was seen in Q1 and in the other 4 years it occurred in Q4, but never in Q2 or Q3.

Source: MLS, Oliver Reports

Let me summarize these in a table:

Conclusion
While the argument has always been made that the spring or summer is the best time to sell a house because that is when there are more buyers looking (hence, higher sales take place), the evidence here adds the additional information that the best prices are also achieved in the summer months.
Thus, as a seller one does indeed want to be ready to go to the market when the thermometer rises. Conversely, the best time to buy is :

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Sounds a lot like today.

If you – or somebody you know – are considering buying or selling a home and have questions about the market and/or current home prices, feel free to contact me on 617.834.8205 or Andrew.Oliver@SothebysRealty.com.

Read How should I choose the broker to sell my house?

Andrew Oliver is a Realtor with Harborside Sotheby’s International Realty. Each Office Is Independently Owned and Operated

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